


Fistfight at the O.K. Corral

by hurricanine



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:49:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricanine/pseuds/hurricanine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandy Shores was an ugly smear on the countryside. Michael only stopped to fill up on gas. The last thing he expected to find was a ghost from his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fistfight at the O.K. Corral

**Author's Note:**

> Written to fill the fantastic Synekdokee's equally fantastic prompt: I kinda want to read a fic where Michael is in Sandy Shores for whatever reason and runs into Trevor. Can you imagine it though? The look on Trevor’s face. He’d get over his shock and start advancing on Michael with a truly murderous look on his face, Michael backing away, trying to save the situation, until Trevor launched himself at him and then it’d be the fistfight to go down in history.

A hot wind stirred the air, a dry wind; it was easy to forget about the desert in San Andreas when you lived in the oasis, the city having sprung up like a tangle of weeds from the edge of the water. The sun glared off the roof of the car, the cloudless sky above reflected in deep indigo. Michael wiped at the sweat forming on his brow and took off his sunglasses to rub the bridge of his nose, where the glasses had sat and stuck to his skin. He squinted his eyes and stared across the sun-baked asphalt, rocking idly on his heels as he waited for the gas to finish pumping.

He would have kept on driving, if he hadn't been running on fumes already. Sandy Shores was a place even the residents tried to avoid; when Dr. Friedlander had suggested an afternoon drive around San Andreas, Michael was sure he hadn't had this place in mind.

The roads – when not simply long stretches of flat dirt – were cracked and riddled with potholes. Every so often there would be a smear of roadkill to break the monotony, or a few empty beer cans rattling along like new-age tumbleweeds. Michael had only driven far enough into town to stop at the nearest gas station but, aside from the gas station attendant, who Michael was fairly certain was high on more than just weed, there seemed to be no one else in this backwater town. Sandy Shores, huh? There was a lot of sand, sure enough, but the only shore was the greasy lip of the lake in the distance. It was a place for dumping trash and dumping bodies, not swimming.

There was a roar from down the street, someone spinning their tires and gunning the engine. Michael leaned against his car, tucking his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans, and watched as two kids tore past on an ATV. The boy looked to be around Jimmy's age; the girl riding behind him, her arms around his middle, looked even younger and was wearing barely enough to be considered decent. Michael was halfway into a stern, disapproving look before he caught himself.

“God, I must be getting old,” he muttered.

The gas pump gave a wretched groan, the nozzle clicking to denote the tank as full. Michael closed his hand around the handle – but stopped cold. The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, a tension settling right between his shoulderblades. There was nothing to suggest danger. Maybe it was a change in the wind, a change in pressure, or just paranoia in his middle-years, but it had kept him alive this long and he wasn't about to question it.

He turned. The wind stirred the sand, blown from the dunes near the highway, at his feet.

A man stood on the other side of the street, his arms at his sides, fingers twitching like a gunslinger at high noon.

Trevor.

Stained t-shirt, sweatpants riding low on his hips, tattoos and scarred skin; nine years older but it was as if no time has passed. Michael stared, and Trevor stared in return. The last time Michael had seen Trevor look so pale, it had been in Ludendorff as he watched his best friend supposedly bleed out in the snow. Then the look of disbelief fled from his face, the shock slid straight into anger. Then Trevor started moving forward, charging like a bull, baring his teeth in a snarl like he wanted to sink them into Michael's throat.

“Oh, fuck,” Michael muttered. For a moment he couldn't move, a deer caught in the headlights and Trevor wasn't the sort to slam on the brakes – no, he'd hit the gas and floor it. He stepped back, palms up, one last vie for peace. If he could just get Trevor to listen, if he could just _explain_ \- “Trev- Hang on a minute-”

Trevor threw a punch, a wild swing, and Michael wheeled back just far enough to dodge the blow. He dropped on instinct, throwing his fist hard into Trevor's stomach. It sent the other man stumbling back long enough for Michael to straighten and settle into a fighting stance.

“You fucking snake!” Trevor roared, swinging again. Michael wasn't fast enough this time; Trevor's fist collided with the side of his head, dazing long enough to give Trevor a decent opening. Michael stumbled back with his nose streaming, but now his blood was up – he gave a ragged shout and charged forward, feinting to the right and swinging with his left. The band of his wedding ring caught against Trevor's lip, leaving it bloodied and split. Trevor spit into the dirt, his rage only fueled by the strike.

Trevor fought dirty, as he always had. Michael had only been on the receiving end of his bloodlust a time or two, years and years ago when they were both young and hotheaded, but those had been friendly tussles in comparison to this. Trevor fought with no concern for himself. He shook off every hit Michael managed to land, his eyes wild and his face ruddy, cheeks puffing with heaving breaths.

Michael tired first. He regretted nothing more than those lazy mornings he could have been out on the court swinging a racket, those days he laid beside the pool instead of swimming. Oh, sure, Trevor's body was strung out on some nearly-lethal cocktail of drugs, but he fought with reckless strength, no concern for what happened to him, pain not registering until the bloodrage faded. He'd wreck his body, rip his knuckles bloody, sprain his wrists and ankles... Michael had even seen him carry a bullet in his side and not realize it until two hours later – Michael had also never seen him lose a fight.

Trevor charged him again and Michael delayed. That was all it took.

His fingers were tight in Michael's hair, ripping it from the roots; Michael grabbed onto the front of Trevor's filthy shirt, but Trevor threw himself forward, pushing with an unrelenting force, his muscles like steel cords beneath his skin, tendons standing in sharp relief just under the surface. Trevor grunted, a snarl like a wild animal would make, and they fell.

Michael's head bounced off of the glossy side of his car, his vision going white, a sharp squeal piercing his ears. “Trev...” His speech was slurred, the world spinning, and it exploded in pain once more as Trevor's fist collided with his jaw. And then again, and he caught his lip between his teeth, biting straight through. Trevor's knee was a solid weight on his chest – there was blood in his mouth, in his nose, he couldn't breathe.

“I mourned you!” Trevor shouted, his eyes wide and crazed, a mad dog straining at the leash. “Nine years, you fucking son of a bitch! Nine _years_!”

 _This is how I die_. Michael strained upward, grasping blindly at the front of Trevor's shirt, groaning sharply. Trevor was going to beat him to death, leave him just a bloody bag of bones in the gas station parking lot. It would have to be a closed-casket funeral. Michael wondered if his family would even bother grieving.

Then the weight was lifted, blessedly, from his chest, and Michael rolled onto his side and coughed, leaving blood and spit beaded in the dirt.

Trevor was up, pacing, wheeling around, his boots heavy on the pavement like he wanted to smash Michael's head in. “ _Get up_ ,” he growled. “I should kill you- _Fuck, fuck, fucking cunt_!”

Slowly, Michael pulled himself to his feet, leaving smears of blood on the glossy metal of his car. He shook his head, blinking rapidly to clear his dazed vision, staggered on his feet until he could stand without support.

“I thought you were dead,” he rasped.

“Go fuck yourself,” Trevor spat. “ _Wished_ I was dead, you mean.”

Michael watched him, still keeping his distance. There was blood still running from the cut in his lip, from his nose as well, and it stung with the intrusion of sweat and dust. “It's not like that.”

“Yeah?” Trevor advanced again, and Michael stepped back on reflex, tripping over his own feet and fetching up against the car. Trevor didn't stop, not until his boots rode up against Michael's dress shoes, his breath hot in Michael's face. “What's it like, then?”

Michael was determined not to flinch. “I had more than just myself to think about – I had Amanda, T, I had the _kids_.”

“You had _me_ ,” Trevor snapped. “You had _Brad_ , the whole crew.” He took a half step back, looking like he was about to start throwing punches again, but Michael grabbed the front of his shirt and reeled him back in.

“I woke up in a hospital bed.” That much was true, at least. Kevlar vests weren't meant to stop sniper shots. Michael sneered, not wincing even as the motion pulled at the cut on his lip. “It was either cut a deal with the feds, or spend the rest of my life in prison. I thought... Brad's dead, Trevor made it out, what did it matter if I rolled on my crew?”

The murderous look in Trevor's eyes did not fade. “They got Brad too,” he said, voice low. “Now he's serving life in a federal penitentiary. What _you_ said got him locked up in there! And me- I've spent the last decade lookin' over my shoulder, waitin' for them to come swooping down on me too. You?” He slammed his hand against the side of the car, making Michael jump, then leaned in close enough that Michael had to fight the urge to lean back. “You... Yeah, looks like you've had a real tough time of it. A real hard life.”

“Look- I'm sorry, T.” Michael met Trevor's gaze head-on. “If I'd known... Shit, I don't know what I would have done. But that was nine fucking years ago.”

Silence. Trevor stared at him for a long moment. “You always were a good liar,” he hissed, his dark eyes unforgiving.

\- - -

It was cooler in the shade against the building. Michael sat with his legs stretched out on the concrete, a cigarette between his fingers, sending up lazy clouds of smoke. His entire face was aching, his back and his knees adding their own silent protests as well, but all things considered... He had gone into a fight with Trevor Philips, raging and unhinged, and lived to tell the tale.

“Mikey, Mikey, Mikey...” He could see Trevor's boots out of the corner of his eye, stretched out beside him on the sidewalk. “'m not done with you yet.”

“I know,” Michael muttered, flicking the ash from his cigarette. “We got things to work out.”

Trevor laughed, but there was a raw edge to the sound. “Yes siree.”


End file.
